Tag: Police Review Commission

I was the founding chairman and national organizer of the Black Panther Party. Our first organizing tactic was to legally observe the police in our Oakland and Berkeley Black communities. During those hard core late 1960s racist, fascist times, we took a big chance with our lives patrolling the police. It was a time of rampant vicious police brutality and murder of Black people by police that was 10 times worse than today.

Along with family members of Kayla (Xavier) Moore, Berkeley Copwatch has been trying to investigate the Feb. 13, 2013, death of Kayla Moore in police custody. We are troubled to see that Berkeley police officers are not only keeping track of us and our activities with regard to Kayla’s death, they are attempting to intimidate us.

Xavier Christopher Moore died Feb. 12 during a situation we believe was instigated by the Berkeley Police Department, at her apartment on the fifth floor of 2116 Allston Way, the Gaia Building. The BPD’s press release of Feb. 13 says that they responded to “a disturbance call” at Moore’s apartment. Media reports have said this call was related to mental health.